[PP|F06] A Chance Encounter

[Dustin 0]

Wake up, make your bed, clean your room, stretch and warm-up, eat breakfast, ten kilometer run. That was Dustin's morning routine. Every day he would wake up before sunrise and start this list. By 10 AM Dustin was running across the bottom floors. Recently his schedule has been all out of whack, what with the whole avenging his brother thing. Today he woke up ass deep in snow, before dusting himself off and deciding to run. Is it early or late? Eh, who cares, I have to run anyways. Today was the sixth floor, the jungle terrain kept him on his toes and made for an interesting path that changed everyday. Maybe the moss of a branch slips and he has to recover, maybe the trees sway in a different pattern with the wind. Who knows, that's why Dustin went on these runs.

He teleports up to the floor of jungles and starts on his journey. Keeping in the trees is difficult normally, he hadn't planned on rain though. Water poured heavily over the boy as he rushed from branch to branch, ledge to ledge, and across the distance. Today he felt faster, so he pushed himself to take a different path. Maybe I can complete a new path altogether. He turned his foot and darted off to the right completely changing his direction. As he did though, he'd noticed his footing was off, and in an attempt to correct it, he overestimated the rotation of his ankle and launched himself straight into the ground. Damn, that was unfortunate. Dustin stood, looking around and up at the trees above him.

"Wait, where am I?"

There was no sign of relative direction, except he could see where he hit the ground there was an "immortal object" notification. "How am I supposed to get back to my house?" He frowned, looking overall dejected for being lost in such a place.

[Zandra 0]

‘’So, what shall I do today?’’ Zandra asked the feathered preadator that was sitting at one of the wooden beams that held up her roof. The kings-eagle sat there, looking at her with those sharp eyes. Zandra replied with a smile. ‘’Yeah, you right. I don’t think we have cheked it out in quite a long time.’’ And with those words, she pushed herself up and left the bed. ‘’Hmm, since we haven’t been there recently, shall we take safe before sorry or just push thru.’’ Zita let out a cry and Zandra answered with a smile and shaked her head from side to side. ‘’No, where is the fun in being overly safe. We are good enough anyway.’’ And with that, she took her axe, putted on her handwraps and took out a crystal. ‘’Krycim!’’ she said loudly. With a bright shine, she disappeared from her bedroom on floor 22 and re-appeared in the middle of the thick jungle at floor 6. With a nod to Zita, she went out, ignoring any and all, NPC or player. It didn’t took her long to get out of eye-sight from the town. She spotted a monkey infront of her. ‘’YAHH!!’’ she shouted, darted forward and with a powerful swing, the monkey shattered. ‘’Haha, that felt good.’’ She said half to herself and half to Zita.

appearance:

Spoiler

 

[Dustin 0]

Had this been the real world that wipeout might have cost a few broken ribs and certainly a broken leg, but because this was a game there was no damage. Dustin like this world, but even he had to admit that no pain does dull the sense of adrenaline. There's no punishment for a mistake, there's no motivation to better your technique. Dustin almost wished there was an option in the menus making it possible to feel some pain of the mistakes.

Dustin looked around but saw nothing. What were his options? Mom always said stay put because someone might be looking for you. That's out, even if someone was looking for me, it wouldn't be to bring me back safely. I could try running to the nearest player and asking them for directions... No, people are generally put off by a random kid in the woods frantically asking how to get home. Maybe I'll wait for a player to stumble upon me. No, I picked this path for it's low foot traffic these days. He sits in the mud and waits for a noise or something to let him know when to move, almost reaching a point of meditation.

His eyes shoot open as a rustling is heard nearby, and Dustin shoots up towards the sound, and upon seeing it, quickly turns and starts running the exact opposite direction as fast as he can. He hadn't donned his weapons or armor in a long time, and right now was just in his casual attire. He had come across a few large apes and had neither the time nor energy to deal with them. Today's officially shit. He couldn't climb faster than the large apes, but he could probably out maneuver them for quite some time. Still though, He would like to get rid of them.

Between the apes screaming at him and the sloshing of mud, Dustin barely heard a voice in the background of all of it. His footing changed, making a sharp right turn and bringing the apes to the nearest voice, because while this was a horrible thing to do, he was hoping they could at least hold them off until he could equip his gear.

(OOC: Dustin's Idea of casual attire, coupled with a simple pair of khaki cargo pants and heavily used combat boots)

Spoiler

 

[Zandra 0]

She saw a reward screen pop up infront of her. She just let out a giggle when she saw the pathetic amount of col this monkey gave her. She looked at Zita. ‘’So, we clearly wont be here for the col. Then lets just have some fun shall we?’’ as she patted the eagle on the head, it almost looked like she was smiling. ‘’Hehe, lets go Zita!’’ and with that, she pushed forward, passing the spot where the monkey had appeared.

A few more humanoids had fallen by her axe, when she herd a rumbling sound. Coming closer towards her from the left. She placed her feets steady on the ground and charged up her axe and charge skill. Her eyes was focused towards the sound. ‘’There!’’ she shouted as soon as she saw a hair arm and exploded forward, knocking the big monkey to the ground and removed a big chunk of his health. A second one approached her but before he could come close, the kings eagle darted down, started pecking his eyes. Thou it was more the two apes, and Zandra could hear a few heavy bodies starting to surround them. ‘’Maybe this wasn’t the best idea Zita.’’ Even thou she said that, a few veteran mobs on this floor would still don’t be any match for the berserk healer.

[Dustin 0]

As Dustin rounded the corner he saw a face that seemed vaguely familiar to the boy. It mattered little to him about who she was, Dustin was gonna use her for a moment. "Sorry to drop this on you, but could you hold them off while I equip my gear?" Dustin asked, his voice carrying no insight into how he felt about this whole situation. His hand swipes through the air as he opens his menu, navigating quickly to the inventory section.

Soon Dustin stood up in his full combat gear, looked dead at the monsters circling them as a small smile formed on his face. "Been a while since I had fun like this." Despite Dustin's excitement, his voice remained monotonous.

Counting them would do him no good, and he would rush in and jump off of the ape's arm, kicking the monster in the jaw with a backflip. Dustin lands and glances up at the healthbar of said monster, watching the green bar shift to yellow as it dropped just below half. Dustin's little grin opened up into a big toothy grin, as he slipped the monster's attack and maneuvered to stand next to Zandra. "The name's Dustin, what's yours?" He would ask in his unmistakably broken voice.

[Zandra 0]

She was just gonna do another strike as she herd a male voice from the side. With one quick move she changed stance to face whatever was coming from the thick vegtation. The monkeys probably even deal enough to not get below her battle healing. Her muscle memory also opened her battle ready inventory andthanks to quick change, she now was covered in a black heavy armor.

But it didn’t seemed like he was a player killer wanting to kill her. ‘’HA! Hold them off? I hope you don’t judge me to much for kill stealing.’’ She said, swung her axe on a couple off them. One of them shattered but where he had stood, now two more took his place. ‘’oops.’’ She said as she saw the sound of combat had probably bringed even more creatures to the scene. The other player, named Dustin seemed to be able to fight thou. ‘’Heya Dustin. I’m Zandra. Lets get rid of some more of these. I hope you can fight.’’

[Dustin 0]

"Lets get rid of some more of these. I hope you can fight.’’

If Dustin was good at anything it was fighting. He'd spent so much time with his dad training and so much more time after that he was in tip top shape. This game, however, had him rely on the system all too much and he would often find himself fighting said system over control of himself. "Zandra, didn't you run that beach party a while back? The one with the fake weapons and the fighting the crabs or whatever it was?" If this was her, Dustin had a bone to pick. Where had she gotten those monsters from and how did she get them there? I believe the swimsuit competition was rigged as well.

In any case, Dustin had to worry about himself as he had a good number of enemies before him. He would dash in, dodging the initial attack and planting a firm punch on the monkey's jaw pushing it's yellow health bar down to nothing. He'd smile as the others pushed their massive fists through the air at the boy, just narrowly missing. Dustin almost laughed at the slow beasts until one swung his hand back like a breast stroke into the boy's side throwing him back by the girl he had made his stand with.

"I'll see you in hell, ape."

[Zandra 0]

Zandra gave Dustin a smile and a thumb up as he asked about the beach party. ‘’Yes, that was me. Damn it dealt a big hit on my savings. But it turned out quite good I think. There haven’t really been that big of an event ever since. Except the one triggered by the game ofcourse. There is no way to com…’’ she got interrupted as an monkey tackled her from behind. The berserk healer stumbled a few steps forward before she got back her balance. Her eyes started to burn as she did a 180 spin on the spot. There she was, eye to eye to a baboon looking creature. ‘’don’t interrupt me when Im trying to hold a conversation!’’ she said to the monkey, that probably didn’t understood her. Then she charged forward as her axe started to shine with a bright blue light. ‘’DIE!’’ she shouted as the two handed weapon cleaved and shattered the monkey. From the momentum she had built up, two more monkeys got hit by powerful swings, another one shattering and the third dropping down into the red zone. Thou the space where the monkeys had been a few seconds earlier, was already filled with another couple of monkeys already. ‘’Sounds like you was on the beach party? Did you enjoyed it?’’

[Dustin 0]

Dustin nods, opening his mouth to confirm her suspicions but noticing an ape rearing up to howl for backup. His legs kick into overdrive as does his body, bobbing and weaving, slipping a few punches and placing his right hand in the center of the ape’s forehead knocking it on its ass. “Yeah, I was there, and of course I had fun. I got to see the ocean.” Dustin rarely got to see the ocean in real life, but he did remember it being about that beautiful.

He hadn’t spoken to her before today, but he wished he had spoken to her at the party. “I saw you there, I was too scared to introduce myself though. I mean, you’re Zandra, the badass of the frontlines.” Dustin had only heard stories of the frontlines but always wanted to see them, even if some of the harsher stories were true. “I still feel a bit nervous talking to you, but I’ll tough it out I guess.”

As he landed, he would jump back. ”So Zandra, what are you doing way down here on floor six?” He would ask, standing at her back facing the monkeys.

[Zandra 0]

Zandra listened to Dustins answer  at the same time as two monkey charged against her. She waited a few moments until just when they was going to run into her. Then she took a quick step to the side, the monkeys passing her, followed up by a quick swing with her axe, shattering the couple. ‘’No need to be nervous talking to me. Im not dangerous. Well, most of the time Im not. But yeah, being in combat helps as well. You cant be nervous or something about the talk, to focused on…’’ another monkey got a slash from her axe as Zita attacked it’s eyes to distract it. ‘’…the combat.’’ She finished off. ‘’Hmm, the ocean you say. I can…’’ was all she could say before she got interrupted by a loud noice. A big thump! And the ground vibrated a bit. ‘’Ehm, Dustin. I think.’’ Another heavy step. ‘’I think something else is on the way.’’